Team Sullivan's Adventures in Warsaw: 6/30/13

Friday, July 5, 2013

Family fun in the Lakes Region!

We were fortunate to have Tom's cousin, Julia, and her boyfriend, Rudy, come to visit us in Warsaw on their summer European vacation. In addition to seeing Warsaw we decided to go with them to Northern Poland to an area called, Mazury. This region is known as the area of 1,000 lakes as it is covered in tons of small lakes and is quite scenic. Tom and I had been wanting to check out this area for quite some time...so we were even more excited that Julia and Rudy could join us! We decided to stay on the biggest lake in a town called Mikojalki. It was an easy three hour drive North of Warsaw. We arrived on Friday night and got settled into our adorable little cabin and relaxed with a fire in the backyard and enjoyed some beers. We spent all day Saturday out on the lake. We rented a boat for the day and went exploring all around the lakes. It was so much fun and super relaxing! We even got to take Charlie with us - it was his first time ever on a boat! At first he was a little uneasy but he quickly got used to it and absolutely loved it. We docked the boat a couple of times to relax, grab some snacks and take Charlie for a swim on the beach. After a long day in the sun we were exhausted and grabbed a low key dinner and headed to bed.

Sunday morning we were treated to massages at the spa and spent the late morning relaxing in our backyard before it was time to leave. On the drive home we made a small detour to check out Hitler's Wolfs Lair...a bunker where he lived for 800 days during the war. Its now pretty run down but still attracts visitors. The craziest part is that in an effort to avoid promoting anything related to Hitler in Poland there isn't so much as a sign or anything to let you know that you are actually at the bunker. It's a total non event. My history loving husband was thrilled to have made this stop. And, I have to say, it was crazy to imagine being in the same spot where Hitler managed the war strategy just a few decades ago...wow!

A picturesque location + great family + lots of fun = A Perfect Summer weekend!

Thanks for visiting Julia and Rudy!

And for those history folks who want a refresher....

Wolf's Lair (German: Wolfsschanze) was Adolf Hitler's first Eastern Front military headquarters in World War II.^[1] The complex, which would become one of several Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) located in various parts of occupied Europe, was built for the start of Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union - in 1941. It was constructed by Organisation Todt.^[1]

The top secret, high security site was in the Masurian woods about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the small East Prussian town of Rastenburg (now Kętrzyn in Poland). It was guarded by personnel from the SS Reichssicherheitsdienst and troops from the Wehrmacht's armoured Führer Begleit Brigade. Although three security zones surrounded the central complex where the Führer bunker was located, an attempt to kill Hitler was made at Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944.^[1]

Hitler first arrived at the headquarters on 23 June 1941. In total, he spent more than 800 days at the Wolfsschanze during a 3½-year period until his final departure on 20 November 1944.^[1] In the summer of 1944, work began to enlarge and reinforce many of the Wolf's Lair original buildings, however the work was never finished because of the rapid Red Army advance during the Baltic Offensive in autumn 1944. On 25 January 1945, the complex was blown up and abandoned 48 hours before the arrival of Soviet forces.

Source

Our view of the lake

Our adorable little cabin!

Starting the weekend off right

So peaceful and relaxing

Tom was in love with this little car!

Out on the lake

We all loved having Julia and Rudy visit

Our boat captains

Charlie got the windblown fur look on the boat

Our cute little boat for the day

Charlie had a blast - it reminded us all of being in Michigan

My boys!

Great times with great weather

Stopping off at Hitler's Wolfs Lair on the drive home

Exploring the bunker

Great weekend!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Corpus Christi

In late May most of Poland was off of work for the Corpus Christi holiday. As Tom loves to say one of the perks of living in a heavily Catholic country is that there is no separation of church and state. So, he was off of work this day! We spent the afternoon relaxing and begin to hear beautiful singing coming from outside. We looked out our balcony to witness a grand processional of singing and chanting as a parade of people made their way down our street and around the corner to the nearby church. It was a really cool thing to witness!

And in case anyone is wondering....a bit about Corpus Christi thanks to Wikipedia:

The Feast of Corpus Christi (Latin for Body of Christ), also known as Corpus Domini, is a Latin Rite liturgical solemnity celebrating the tradition and belief in the body and blood of Jesus Christ and his Real Presence in the Eucharist. It emphasizes the joy of the institution of the Eucharist, which was observed on Holy Thursday in the somber atmosphere of the nearness of Good Friday.

In the present Roman Missal, the feast is designated the solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.^[1] It is also celebrated in some Anglican, Lutheran, and Old Catholic Churches that hold similar beliefs regarding the Real Presence.

The processional coming down our street on their way to the church around the corner

It was quite a large group!

Caring beautiful banners

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Chernobyl

After spending our first day in Kiev exploring the city we spent the next day doing something a bit more unusual. We went on an all day tour to Chernobyl, the site of the horrific nuclear disaster nearly 30 years ago. From the moment we knew we were headed to the Ukraine, Tom was convinced that we had to take the opportunity to see Chernobyl. I wasn't as sold on the idea and needed some time to do my research before feeling comfortable going -- it is a site that still emits low levels of radiation and the Ukrainian government only allows you to visit for a maximum of four hours a day.
For those that need a refresher....from Wikipedia

The Chernobyl disaster (Ukrainian: Чорнобильська катастрофа, Chornobylska Katastrofa – Chornobyl Catastrophe) was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then officially the Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe.

The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on theInternational Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011).^[1] The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles.^[2] The official Soviet casualty count of 31 deaths has been disputed, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.

We got up bright and early to meet our tour bus for the close to two hour ride North to the Ukrainian/Russian border. During the ride we watched a documentary all about the tragic event and also learned about the ruled while visiting...most importantly - Not touching any live plants, trees or grass as these have much higher radiation levels than concrete. Our tour guide even carried a geiger counter with him the entire time to monitor the radioactivity levels during our tour. After passing through a government control point we made our way into the area. Our first stop was at an abandoned kindergarten and primary school. It was absolutely unbelievable and surreal to see how everything in the school had literally been left and remained in its place while the trees and grass continued to grow around it. After the reactor exploded the entire city was forced to leave about 12 hours later. They had no idea that they would never be returning to their homes, therefore they took very little of their personal belongings with them. After the kindergarten we stopped at a number of memorials honoring that various fire and police personnel that were first responders on the site and helped to save the lives of thousands of people by reacting quickly and risking their own lives in the process.

Next, we finally made it to the actual site of the reactors. It doesn't look like much more than a series of factories and its really hard to imagine one of the reactors exploding and causing so much harm. There is a concrete casing over the exploded reactor to prevent it from leaking further, but unfortunately that solution was only temporary for about 30 years. So, next to the reactors there are workers who are in the process of constructing a new cover for the reactor that will be slid into place next year. Even now, almost 30 years later the construction workers are forced to work in highly regulated shifts in order to limit their radiation exposure.

The most interesting part of the tour was visiting Pripyat. This was a city of nearly 50,000 people all of whom lived in this area to be close to their jobs near the Chernobyl plant. This city had to be quickly evacuated after the accident and these people had no idea they would never be returning home. All of the buildings of this town still exist as concrete shells that have been overtaken by the trees and grass in the area. Its crazy to walk through such a quiet and serene place and to imagine the place full of life and happiness just years ago.

All in all it was an incredibly interesting experience to see the remanence of a former civilization that was abandoned so recently -- A sobering reminder of a horrific accident.